Shop Talk Redux: ’99 percent’ problems, the Tiara ain’t one

"You are weary, oh so weary, of wearing glittering tiaras or bow-knots in your hair of an evening"; Joan Klein wrote on this day in 1934.

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With the season’s new sweeping, classic lines you crave a return to the simpler things, and yet you rather like the flattering effects of a diadem topping your brushed up curls. What to do about it? Charles & Emil at 47 East Forty-sixth street, have a neat solution to this problem in the form of a brand new natural hair coronet to be used on long or bobbed hair. It is matched exactly to the color of your hair. All you do is pin it on, and there you are. The prices start at $5.50 and up and the braid will last forever.

Back in 1934, women had the same problem as we modern females do today—we are so tired of wearing diamond tiaras on a daily basis! Carrying the equivalent of an annual college tuition atop of your head is indeed a burden, one we should perhaps set aside.

Since our economic situation greatly parallels theirs (Great Recession vs. Great Depression), we also might want to refrain from showing off our finery in front of the unwashed masses at Zuccotti Park. Or in their case, the Hoovervilles that had sprung up around the country.

Thankfully, Klein wouldn’t take away our bejeweled tiaras without suggesting a suitable replacement: Diadems made from human hair! Who needs diamonds when you can use human hair? (This is a rhetorical question.)

But don’t worry – not your hair. Both then as now, we can pay poor people for some of theirs just like we pay drug addicts for their blood. Or we can get it on the black market from India, where it is simply stolen from Hindu temples. Yay fashion!

And just a side note: the only reason I knew what "diadem" means without looking it up was because it is an important term in the final Harry Potter book. Thank you JK Rowling, a woman who can afford diadems by the truckload.